Citing "anti-American" things Stalin said can be a good tactic when you’re losing in a US political campaign and need to red-bait, but not when the quote is wrong.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson failed to do his homework during Saturday night’s debate when he closed with: “Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: Our spiritual life, our patriotism, and our morality.”

After several media outlets tried to verify the quote, it was eventually traced back to… a right-wing Facebook meme.

Speaking to CBS after the debate, Carson praised his own performance, saying he had “real solutions to the problem and is not going to get distracted by all the garbage.”

After finishing well below the front-runners in the New Hampshire primary with a paltry 2.3 percent, Carson will be desperate to generate whatever support he can get, but he may want to stop sourcing his “facts” from Facebook.